


il n'est rien de réel que le rêve et l'amour

by enoughlouis



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, French!Harry, M/M, Paris (City), Student!Louis, but i liked the idea of this one so like, harry's a photographer, i don't write au's too often, louis doesn't speak a word of french, this is basically just shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 23:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enoughlouis/pseuds/enoughlouis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Louis is on a semester abroad in Paris, and Harry is a gorgeous French photography student.</p>
            </blockquote>





	il n'est rien de réel que le rêve et l'amour

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://enoughlouis.tumblr.com/post/70243846219/tomlinfox-the-one-where-louis-is-a-foreign) post from tumblr. Let me know what you think in the comments or in my [tumblr ask](http://enoughlouis.tumblr.com/ask).
> 
> Contains possibly terribly incorrect French, just a warning. I was going from memory of what's left of my high school French, so… Let me know if there's anything horribly wrong in here.
> 
> Disclaimer — I do not own, nor am I connected to, any people mentioned in this story.

Louis doesn't know what in the ever loving, bloody hell he was thinking when he decided that doing a semester abroad in Paris would be a good idea. He doesn't even speak French.

Sure, it had all seemed like a brilliant idea when he was still in his dreary little rundown student flat in Manchester, freezing his tits off in the dead of a January cold spell and slogging through rainstorms to rival a monsoon just to make it to his bullshit French Lit class that Zayn had made him take because it was supposed to “broaden his horizons,” whatever the hell _that_ means. The whole idea of six months in Paris was all well and good when Paris was still a hazy dream-place in his mind, filled with baguettes and bicycles and sunshine, freely flowing wine and gorgeous French girls throwing themselves at his feet.

But now he's here, and it's real, and he's totally, completely alone. _He doesn't even speak French_.

Zayn (who, Louis would like to bitterly add, _does_ speak French) was meant to be here with him, but he'd rescheduled at the last minute after he'd met a loudtalking Geordie girl called Perrie in a pub one night and had decided to stay in Manchester for the extra two weeks before the class they're going to be taking together at the Sorbonne starts at the beginning of August. So now Louis' here, in Paris, lost, and he just wants to find his way to the bloody Eiffel Tower before it gets dark and he gets mugged by a rogue band of miming French street musicians or whatever.

He makes a futile attempt at blowing his sweaty fringe off his forehead, shaking his head at his own stupidity. He'd thankfully had enough foresight to grab a map from the kiosk in the train station yesterday when he'd arrived, and he pulls it from his back pocket and unfolds it on his lap. He's managed to swallow his pride enough by this point that he's not worried about looking like a total and complete arse for walking around with his nose in a map.

There's no one here to judge him, anyway. The park he's currently sat in is mostly packed with slubby looking American families eating ice cream and creepily well-organised Japanese tour groups holding huge, clicking cameras. No one that he particularly cares about impressing, at any rate.

The only problem, though, is that he has no idea where he actually _is_. It takes him a few minutes to find the Eiffel Tower on his map, but once he's placed a finger on the spot and has started to try to figure out how to get there, he realises he's got no clue where he's starting from. For all he knows, he could be in Versailles right now. (He really hopes not, because that looks far away, but he _did_ do a lot of walking this morning.)

He huffs out a breath, feeling hopeless and lost. He reaches up to push his fringe out of his eyes and looks around at the milling crowds helplessly, trying to find a sign that will tell him where in the world he is. He's in Paris, he's pretty sure, but he's not even convinced of that anymore.

No one's paying him any mind, though, and he's about to give up wholesale and throw his map in the bin next to his bench, maybe try to retrace his steps or find a cabby who speaks enough English to get him back to his flat, but then his eye catches on a boy about twenty metres away, sitting removed from the hustle and bustle of the tourists with his face glued to an old analogue-style camera. He's snapping pictures of passers-by, of the trees, of peoples' shoes. Of anything, really.

Louis doesn't know what it is about him that catches his attention, but before he can stop himself, his feet are picking him up and carrying him down the path toward the boy.

He stops directly in front of the camera's lens, and he hears the shutter click before he can even open his mouth to apologise for ruining the shot.

“Speakez anglais?” Louis asks hopefully, holding up the map with a halfhearted smile on his face. He's not really up to making friends with a random stranger right now, but he needs help, and he's nothing if not resourceful.

The boy lowers his camera slowly and lifts a hand to shield his eyes from the sun as he looks up at Louis from beneath a ridiculous-looking mop of dark, curly hair. His eyes are green, _really_ green, and his cheeks form the most insane dimples that Louis has ever seen in his life as he smiles up at him.

“Oui, I speak English,” the boy says in a charmingly lilting French accent that makes Louis smile in spite of his bad mood. Maybe the hair isn't so awful after all.

“Right,” he says, pushing the map further toward the stranger. “Good. I, erm... I'm looking for the Eiffel Tower. But I don't know where we are right now? Can you help me?”

The boy looks up at him with a grin on his face and a surprisingly open expression for someone who's being accosted by a lost English tourist. He pats the bench next to where he's sitting.

“Come,” he says, setting his camera down in his lap. “I will help you.”

Louis wonders to himself if maybe he's managed to find the only crazy person in this park, because aren't the French meant to be standoffish and bitter about everyone who doesn't speak French? Whatever, he's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, not when he's as lost as he is right now, so he just shrugs and sinks onto the bench next to the boy, who nods at him in approval.

“First,” the boy says, “My name is 'Arry. And how are you called?”

Louis frowns in confusion for a second. “I'm Louis,” he says. “But I really just need —“

“Ah, Louis,” Harry interrupts with a brilliant grin that shuts Louis up almost immediately. “A very French name. We will get along well.”

“Yeah, but I just need to find out where I am, mate,” Louis says, moving to stand up. “Can you just tell me where we are?”

Harry stops him with a hand on his forearm. “Wait, okay, sorry,” he says quickly. “I will help you. But I make a deal with you.”

Louis' not sure where this is going, but Harry seems harmless enough. And as far as possibly-insane French people go, he's at least not hard on the eyes. The hair is actually pretty awful (a giantly swooping mess of a curly-headed quiff), but he guesses it's stylish in a weird continental sort of way. Harry looks like the kind of guy who might carry a purse and get away with it because he's European enough to pull it off, and he's actually wearing two different plaid buttonups at once right now, which doesn't help the case for insanity, but somehow looks good on him.

“Fine,” Louis sighs. “What's the deal, then?"

Harry's face lights up with a sparkly-eyed grin that makes him look so fucking earnest and excited that Louis knows he probably won't be able to say no to whatever Harry has in mind, even if it is totally insane.

“I will take you wherever you want to go,” Harry tells him, picking his camera back up, “but you 'ave to let me take a photo of you in each place. That is the rule.”

Louis narrows his eyes at this strange boy who's looking at him hopefully with a camera clutched in his hands and a map of Paris stretched over both their laps. This is a stupid idea, and he should absolutely say no. He can practically hear his mum's voice barking in his head about how he should be careful with strangers when he's in big cities, especially one as big as Paris, and about how he's probably going to wind up a statistic or at least being dragged to some kind of weird French torture dungeon or something.

But his mum's not here. She's back in muddy, rainy Yorkshire, and he's in sunny (bloody hot) Paris with a beautiful French boy offering to be his personal tour guide in exchange for a few pictures. What could it hurt, really? As long as he doesn't give away any details about where he's staying or whatever, it'll be fine. Probably.

Louis sighs. “Okay, I guess,” he says finally. “So where are we?”

Harry's smile widens, and he springs up from where they're sitting, knocking the map to the ground and gathering up his camera. He pulls a slick pair of aviators from the front of his shirt and slides them onto his face, slinging his camera strap over his shoulder and patting down his back pockets to make sure he's not dropped anything.

“Lose your map,” he instructs Louis with a wave of his hand. “We are in Les Tuileries. Near the east end. Le Musee du Louvre est la-bas, but we are not going there today. Peut-être another time.”

“I don't even speak French, how do you expect me to keep up with Frenglish?” Louis asks him, but he's mostly kidding as he bends to pick up the fallen map. Harry might not think he needs it, but just in case.

Harry grins at him from behind his sunglasses and shoves his hands in his pockets as he waits patiently for Louis to fold his map back up. After several moments and a large amount of voodoo witchcraft, Louis finally manages it, and he stuffs it back into his pocket and looks up to find Harry still staring at him with a mildly curious look on his face.

“Are you ready to go?” he asks, cocking his head. “I want to show you more than just la Tour Eiffel, you know.”

Louis feels himself flush, and his eyes go a bit wider as they start down the crunching gravel path out of the park.

“Oi, watch it, Frenchy,” he says incredulously as his stomach jumps into his throat. “I know you're all _free love_ over here on the continent, but I'm English. I've got to keep at least some of my Britishness while I'm here.”

Harry barks out a seal's laugh that startles Louis into looking up at him (looking _up_ at him, christ, Louis hadn't realised exactly how tall Harry was until they were walking next to each other like this). Harry pushes a long-fingered hand back through his hair, and Louis tries hard not to stare.

“I do not mean it like this,” Harry says once his laughter has died down. “I only mean I want to show you more of Paris. Mais je pense que je ne dérangerait pas de vous montrer un peu plus que cela.”

“Me too,” Louis says sarcastically. “That's exactly what I was thinking.”

Harry gives him an inexplicably lopsided and cheeky looking grin, and he cocks an eyebrow. “Do you know what you just agreed to?” he asks.

“Of course,” Louis laughs, and they're leaving the park by now, starting onto a bridge over the Seine. “I couldn't do any better than 'speakez anglais' before, but ten minutes with you, and I know exactly what you just said.”

“I'm glad to hear I am such a good teacher then,” Harry says. He pulls his camera up suddenly and without warning, and he snaps a photo before Louis can protest.

“What was that one for?” Louis asks as they leave the bridge and turn down a tight, claustrophobic alleyway that makes Louis grateful for the little barrier between the pavement and the single-lane street.

“Your eyes are pretty when you laugh,” Harry says nonchalantly, shrugging.

He moves to walk in front of Louis as they pass a man going the opposite direction, and he reaches a hand out behind him to place it on Louis' arm as the man squeezes past, almost like he's doing it subconsciously, like a weird sort of protective thing. That would normally bother Louis a whole hell of a lot, but like... Maybe it's the way that Harry smiles back at him with a big, open, honest looking grin or the way he's waving his hands around madly as he babbles on in broken English about all the places he wants to take Louis to, and it's all so insane, because Louis literally just met him, doesn't know him at all beyond his first name, but he somehow feels like they've known each other for years.

“Would you like to see le Champs-Elysée après la Tour, or would you more like to see something better?” Harry's asking him as the alley opens up into a busy roundabout and another sprawling park. He reaches a hand out for Louis' as they begin to cross the massive boulevard, and Louis takes it without thinking much about it, letting himself be dragged along.

“Well, when you put it like that,” Louis laughs, and he feels Harry squeeze his hand a little. “Maybe something better. I don't know. It depends on what you're trying to trick me into.”

“What if I say to you that I know the best cafe in all of Paris?” Harry offers, and they've made it across the street by now, so there's really no reason for their hands to stay linked, but neither of them makes any move to let go.

“I'm not a big fan of coffee myself,” Louis admits, shrugging.

Harry looks absolutely scandalised.

“You do not like le cafe?” he asks, going so far as to remove his sunglasses so he can stare at Louis incredulously. “Mais you are in Paris now. You must drink it. It is the rule.”

“I thought the rule was loads of pictures of me?” Louis questions, smirking at him as they continue down the path.

“I have lots of rules,” Harry says loftily, throwing Louis one last look of mock disdain before he replaces his sunglasses. “And one of them is that you _will_ drink the coffee. And like it.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he concedes. “I guess we'll go drink _the coffee_ after this. But I won't like it.”

“You will,” Harry assures him with another cheeky grin as he steers them off the main road and down another tight alley. “You must.”

Louis looks around and can't help but wonder how Harry knows where the hell he's going right now. Even if someone lives in Paris their whole life, which he's not even sure if Harry's done, it's got to be impossible to keep track of things around here. All the buildings look exactly the same in this city, that weirdly rounded yellowish stone look with the black roofs.

“Do you actually know where you're going?” Louis asks after a moment. “We've been walking for about twenty minutes now.”

Harry shoots him a slightly condescending look. “Of course I know where I'm going,” he says. “Just around this corner you will be able to see la Tour.”

As if on cue, they round a corner, and, well, there it is. Right in front of them. Louis has no idea how Harry managed to get them here, but he cranes his head back so he can stare all the way to the top. He feels Harry drop his hand (huh, he hadn't noticed they were still holding hands), and he hears the click of Harry's camera shutter going off, one after another. Louis turns his head so he can see Harry, who's got his sunglasses pushed up into his hair, and he smiles from behind his camera when he catches Louis looking.

“Tu as une relation spéciale avec la lumière,” Harry says quietly, almost like he's saying it to himself. And maybe he is, because he must know that Louis can't understand him. But he keeps talking to himself in soft-spoken French, and Louis lets the sound wash over him as he takes in the view of the Eiffel Tower. “J'adore ton petit nez mignon. Et tes cils. Je sais que je ne te connais pas, mais je pense que je pourrais avoir besoin de t'embrasser. Suis-je fous?”

Harry takes a few more photos before lowering his camera, and when Louis looks over at him again, there's a tightness in his eyes that wasn't there before. He's surprised at himself for noticing it, but there's a definite change in Harry's demeanour. He looks much less happy-go-lucky than he had a moment ago. The corners of Harry's mouth twitch when they make eye contact, and then he turns away slightly to dig into the bag on his shoulder, averting his eyes as he rummages around for a new roll of film, which he takes a moment to change out.

By the time he reshoulders his camera and lowers his sunglasses, the smile is back on his face, and his eyes look happy and bright again, and Louis is left wondering if he maybe imagined the briefly weird mood.

Harry _is_ a bit quieter, though, as they make their way off the street and into the park that holds the Tower, start up a little hill and then make their way down a winding path. Harry coos soft and fond-sounding French words at a baby in a stroller that they pass, but other than that, he's largely silent.

Without thinking much about what it might mean, Louis reaches out into the space between them and lets his fingers brush over Harry's once, twice, then he lets their hands catch and hold, their fingers slotting together smoothly, and this is so insane, he doesn't even know this boy at all, but it just feels _right_. It feels natural.

“You okay?” Louis asks him in a bit of an undertone, because they're starting to get into much more tourist-laden territory again, and this maybe feels like something he should keep between them. “You got quiet all of a sudden back there.”

“I'm fine,” Harry replies, shaking his head. “I just...forget it. C'était stupide.”

“You're not stupid,” Louis says, because even he can understand that word. “You figured out how to get us here, so. Not stupid in my book. I couldn't've figured it out.”

Harry pushes his sunglasses back off his face again and peers down at Louis with an unreadable look in his eyes. Their hands are still linked between them, and Louis feels himself flush a little under the scrutiny.

“You realise we've only known each other for less than an hour, oui?” Harry asks him, and the way he's looking at Louis, it's like he's trying to communicate something more than just that. Louis' not sure if he knows what that something more is.

“Yeah, but... I dunno. I don't know what it is,” Louis says slowly, frowning a bit as he speaks. He takes a deep breath and shakes his head, staring down at their linked hands. “Never mind. Just ignore me. I think I'm going crazy or something.”

Harry's watching him with a concerned look on his face, and Louis feels a thumb run comfortingly across the back of his hand. It's probably the heat or the stress of being alone in a foreign country or something, but he can't shake the feeling that he _knows_ Harry somehow, even though they've clearly never met.

“I know what you mean,” Harry tells him quietly, and Louis' not really sure if he does, but Harry gives his hand one lasts squeeze before he turns back toward the tower. “But we are in Paris, and it is no time to be upset. Paris is for love, not for sadness. We 'ave no reason to be sad.”

 _Paris is for love, not for sadness_.

The words ring through Louis' mind as they continue up the path toward the base of the tower, and he wonders if that was just one of those things that people say or if it meant something, because it feels an awful lot like Harry's flirting with him right now. And even if he's not really, the point still stands that he's walking round the base of the Eiffel Tower, hand in hand with a gorgeous French boy who keeps stubbornly stopping to take his photo, and he's not really sure how he wound up here when he'd been sweaty and miserable just an hour ago, but he doesn't think he wants to complain about it. Not when Harry's giving him _that_ look. It feels...weird and scary and intense, but it's also making his insides twist in a way he's never felt before, and he can't help the little flutter of excitement when he looks around at all the couples surrounding them and realises that from the outside, they probably blend right into the crowd.

 _Paris is for love, not for sadness_.

Louis thinks Harry might have been right. 


End file.
